


Spalniy vagon

by glacis



Category: X Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2010-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:29:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacis/pseuds/glacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man comes to Mulder seeking assistance and protection. Or does he? previously published in Double eXposure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spalniy vagon

_Spalniy vagon_

_definition : **sleeper** : n. (1) one that sleeps. (2) One that achieves unexpected recognition or success. (3) An unsuspected espionage agent in deep cover within enemy territory that is activated after a period of dormancy. _spal'-niy va-gon' : sleeper (Russian translation).

He'd been twisted in so many knots over the last year he was having a hard time remembering his own name, not to mention his most dearly held beliefs. And with a name like Fox, unforgettable as that was, it was doubly indicative of the truly shitty year 1997 had been.

Well, with a few bright highlights. Scully went into remission.

Cancerman died.

Maybe.

Special Agent Mulder, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Paranormal Activities (X Files) division, took careful aim with his thirty sixth rubber band that evening and scored a direct hit on the fore landing light of the flying saucer hovering mid-air over his oft-abused motto, I Want To Believe. The poster was getting a bit ratty around the edges, but it still gave him a little shiver whenever he looked at it.  Because with all the crap life (and the US Government, not to mention various and sundry alien entities no one else would admit to) kept throwing at him, he **did** want to believe. So much it hurt.

But then, he was used to the pain. Lost his sister, and his childhood with her. Lost his father, and his entire view of the structure of the world around him was wrenched out of focus. His mother would barely even look at him, much less speak with him, and god only knew what she'd come out with if she ever did open up to him. He wasn't all that sure he wanted to know some truths. Even if he **had** to hear them.

He could feel his thoughts dragging him down, winding him up tighter and tighter. His eyes felt like sandpaper, his thoughts were chasing themselves in useless loops over and around the same set of interlaced conspiracies, and he was feeling like a kitten tied in yarn right before being tossed in the deep end of the swimming pool. The  incongruous thought that he was starving popped out of that mental image somehow, and his hand was halfway to the phone to call for pizza when he remembered that he was still at work. And getting Little Caesar through the metal detectors was a real bitch.

Fingers still lightly resting on the plastic handset, he was startled half out of his seat by the ringing of the phone bell. He snatched the receiver up and pressed it to his ear automatically.

"Mulder!" He hadn't meant to sound so enthusiastic, but hey, he'd been surprised. The voice tentatively questioning in his ear caused him to fall heavily back into his chair.

"Uhm, Agent Fox Mulder?" It sounded like he wasn't sure he had the right number. Through the numbness hiding the growing red haze of his thoughts, Mulder was quite sure he did.

"What the fuck do you want, Krycek? And where the hell are you? Last I checked you were wandering around the Siberian forest with your Red Army buddies!"

There was dead silence on the other end of the line. Then a throat was cleared, and the voice sounded again, even more tentatively.

"I don't know if this is the right number--"

"Don't be such a prick, Krycek. I'm not in the mood to play your stupid mind games!" The growl was even more pronounced now, as Mulder clenched his jaw to keep from screaming into the phone.

"Who's Krycek?" A damned good actor, apparently. He sounded honestly puzzled.

It was Mulder's turn to stare at the wall in disbelief. What did he think he was pulling now? "What are you up to, Alex?" He consciously softened his voice, inviting confidence, trying to mask the feral desire to rip the other man's head from his shoulders.

"Well, that's closer, anyway." The voice lightened somewhat, but it still sounded uncertain and wary. "My name's Alec Neekto. I'm a computer programmer."

Mulder made a strangled noise, and the other man took it for encouragement, not rampant disbelief at Krycek's incredible balls.

"There have been some … strange things happening recently. An e-mail buddy of mine recommended I call you, and told me to tell you that Tindall sent me. Uhm, I mean, the Tin Man."

Mulder closed his eyes, his fingers clenching around the handset.  Tindall was a hacker he'd met several months before through the Lone Gunmen. Tin man was both paranoid and very shy, but had been extremely helpful with hacking into the Defense Department's biological weapons R&amp;D database.  Just the mention of that particular name over an open line into FBI headquarters made Mulder's skin crawl. Before Krycek, or whoever the hell he was calling himself, could say another word, he broke in.

"Meet me. Diner at Walnut and Madison. Called Hazelnut's. Half an hour." He cradled the receiver before he could get an answer. Maybe it was the coward's way out, but if the other man couldn't make it he didn't want to hear it. Failure to appear equated with hoax, and that was the way he was going to look at it. Grabbing his coat and flicking the light off on the way out the door, he took the stairs up to the ground level two at a time.

He didn't think about what would happen if the man showed up. He didn't think it would ever happen. Ratboy? In a public, well lit place? Where he could be seen, taken in, no handy bolt holes to lunge into? Nah. Never happen.

Exactly thirty minutes from the time he hung up the phone, Krycek walked in the door of Hazelnut's. Mulder nearly dropped his coffee.  The traitorous bastard stood in the doorway for a few moments, back-lit, a clear target. Half of Mulder's brain couldn't believe Krycek was being so damned stupid … or suicidal. The other half was too busy sighing wistfully at the sight to care. He'd known the younger man was good looking when they were partnered, but subsequent betrayals had tarnished that knowledge. After not seeing him for months, and as ragged as he had looked the last time Mulder had seen him, looking at him now was almost like looking at a different person.

His suit fit, for starters. Tailored fine dark wool, cobalt blue threads weaving through the charcoal cloth, picking up lights in Krycek's eyes. The matching tie and creamy linen shirt showed off his coloring beautifully. Mulder bit his tongue. It had been a **very** long time since a man had affected him like this. The first time he'd seen Krycek he'd thought he was beautiful, and known he was off limits.  But this Krycek … alike and yet different. His hair was longer, just brushing his collar, with a hint of wave to it. His face was fine-boned, slender, slight shadows under his eyes, but without the lines of stress and fatigue that had been so prevalent last time they'd met. Clean, close shaven, hands well cared for and fidgeting slightly. Poised on the balls of his feet, but not as if to fight.  More as if to flee.

When he made no move to come forward, Mulder half-lifted a menu card and waved it at him. A look of transparent relief came over his face, and Mulder found himself shaking his head in disbelief. Whatever the hell had happened to Krycek to clean him up had also taken every last atom of his survival instincts away from him. Or at least so it appeared. He stopped at the edge of the table and looked down at Mulder, half relieved, half fearful.

"Agent Mulder?" His voice was the same, only the slight hesitation wavering below the words was unusual. Mulder kept the tip of his tongue between his teeth and nodded toward the opposite bench in the small booth. Krycek glanced around once, then sank onto the hard plastic cushion. "I wasn't quite sure where this place was, but I looked it up. I have a Thomas Guide and it really comes in handy sometimes. Much better than the Rand McNally. I don't really get out and about all that much. Too busy with work and my computer, I guess. Why did you hang up like that?"

The abrupt question on the end of the soft ramblings caught Mulder by surprise -- again. He carefully unclenched his teeth, rolled his tongue in his mouth to stop the initial, instinctive response to Krycek's attempt at a verbal thrust, and took a deep breath.

"Drop the act, Krycek. You're not fooling anybody and you're sure as hell not impressing me." Tired eyes met his with convincing incomprehension. Then they closed, briefly, and Mulder was caught by the length and silkiness of the dark lashes. _Shit._ He had it bad, and it wasn't going to go away easily this time. His resistance was too low. Listening with one ear to the quiet litany of lies issuing from his companion, Mulder ran a mental checklist of all the reasons why he should hate Alex Krycek. Most of them began and ended with betrayal. Balanced against this truly impressive list was the undeniable fact that he'd wanted him for what felt like forever, and he was worn a little too thin around the edges to hide that desire successfully. Even from himself. He tuned back in just as Krycek was leaning forward and patting his knuckle with one gentle index finger.

"Are you listening to me at all?" A hint of anger and frustration was pushing aside the hesitation. Mulder thought about it for a split second then reeled the whole pack of bologna back at him.

"Your name is Alec Neekto, age thirty four, computer programmer working on defense contracts for a private software development company out of Reston, Virginia. Three weeks ago you noticed irregularities in your data that led you to believe someone was going through your files. When you reported it, no one believed you. Two days after that someone went through your apartment. Nothing was taken. Again, you reported it but no one believed you. Eleven days ago you began hearing strange noises on your phone that made you believe it was tapped. When you attempted to ascertain if this was the case you were dismissed as a crank. Five days ago someone began to follow you, and you decided against going to the police because 'they wouldn't believe you anyway.' You got my name from an e-mail buddy you met in a chat room about six months ago, one hacker with the handle Tin Man, who recommended me to help you when you told him what had been happening. Get it all so far?"

Krycek stared at him. It was a masterful performance, although the gaping jaw was probably overkill. Unable to resist the temptation, he put one finger under that square jaw and snapped it shut. Krycek blushed.

Mulder's own jaw dropped. He didn't know Krycek knew **how** to blush.

The now painfully red young man opposite him slowly slumped into his seat, brought his elbows up to the table and dropped his face into his hands. "You don't believe me either. You think I'm this Crutcheck person."

Before Mulder could correct his pronunciation, he scrabbled wildly in his pocket. Mulder tensed, expecting a gun. The thin square of worn black leather Krycek pulled out wasn't nearly as threatening, and he relaxed. Fractionally. It didn't do to get too relaxed in Krycek's company.

"Here!" A Virginia state driver's license, social security card, Chevron card and photo id card from Techtron Industries landed on the table on front of him. Carefully aligning them side by side, he took his time memorizing them. All were in the name of Alec Neekto, and the license gave a home residence of 839 Dunlap Street #19, Reston, Virginia. They looked genuine. This, of course, proved nothing.  Although he had to admit they were higher quality than he would have expected a down-on-his-luck Russian agent to be able to afford.  They'd even been nicely weathered.

He looked up coolly into the rapidly heating glare Krycek was giving him. "So? Good forgeries. Do you give recommendations?"

An inarticulate exclamation answered his facetious question as Krycek gathered the cards up and stuffed them back into his wallet. "What do you want from me?" he finally hissed, his voice cracking on the last word. He blushed again, and Mulder could see that he was shaking.

A niggling doubt caught at the back of his mind. This man wearing Krycek's face had all the self-protective instincts of a newborn infant. His documents were good -- damned good. But then again, Krycek was an accomplished liar, and had fooled too many people in the past, Mulder included, for him to swallow this too easily. He gathered up his coat, tossed a couple dollars on the tabletop for the untouched coffee, and stood quickly. Krycek stared up at him, looking for all the world like a spaniel about to be abandoned.

"C'mon," Mulder invited, one hard hand around the other man's biceps giving him no opportunity to refuse the invitation. "Let's go home."

Krycek didn't make a sound as the two men hustled to Mulder's car.  Mulder checked every direction, and didn't see anyone watching. They settled in, and as soon as the seat belt clicked shut over his passenger he headed toward the address from the license. Checking the mirrors often and doubling back three times, he ensured that they weren't followed. Two blocks from the apartment complex, Krycek ventured a question.

"Mr. Mulder?" Mulder snorted in disbelief at the act but nodded anyway. "How do you know where I live?"

Mulder stared at him, then looked back at the road just in time to stop at a red light without rear-ending a Lexus idling importantly in front of them. He swallowed twice, considered and discarded several scathing replies, and answered simply, "Your license." If Krycek wanted to play dimwits, he was more than happy to play along.

Amazingly, Krycek chuckled. "Oh. Of course. How stupid of me."

Mulder agreed, silently, then wondered what was going on in the other man's head, trying to triple think his way around what had proven in the past to be a truly Machiavellian mind. Krycek let himself out of the car and led the way to his apartment door. As they stepped off the elevator into the hallway, he gave a small cry and started forward at a near-run. Mulder instinctively grabbed him and pulled him back against the wall, holding him still by the simple expedient of covering him with his body.

"Where the hell are you going?" he whispered fiercely into the ear next to his mouth.

"They-" the indignant bellow was swiftly quieted by Mulder's hand over his mouth. His lips continued to move, and Mulder's body reacted to the feeling of those lip fluttering against his palm, that strong body moving under his. Angry at his Pavlovian response to Krycek's nearness, he slapped the back of the other man's head against the wall, lightly enough not to knock him out but heavily enough to stop all motion. A muffled squeak of protest and pain withered under his glare.

"Quietly, damnit. They may still be there. Are you carrying?" At the look of dumb ignorance meeting his own, he lost what little patience he had left. "A *gun*, fuckhead, are you carrying your gun?"

The ignorance gave way to horror, and Krycek shook his head as hard as he could beneath the hand holding his lower face. Mulder sighed and let him go, slowly. "I am an idiot."

"Why?" Krycek asked shakily, then reached up and fingered the back of his skull. "That hurt." There was a definite whine in his voice.  "Why'd you have to-" His voice cut off and his eyes widened as Mulder pulled his own Glock from its holster and motioned Krycek to get behind him. Swallowing heavily, Krycek shut up and plastered himself against the wall, staring with fascination at Mulder's weapon. Mulder stared back at him for a moment, wondering just how far Krycek was willing to go with this fantasy and if he was willing to get both of them killed to save his cover. Then he took a gamble, turned his back on the other man, and crept into the opened door of the apartment.

The place had been completely torn apart. A stifled, distressed gurgle from behind him at the door frame assured him that Krycek had seen the damage as well. Before Mulder could stop him, Krycek headed into the bedroom, muttering curses under his breath. Mulder hurried to follow, trying to look all directions at once to make sure the intruders truly were gone. Before he got past the doorway into the back room, there was a scuffling noise and a cut-off yell. Mulder instinctively brought his weapon up, as a large body crashed past him and out the door. He took off at a dead run, trying to catch the suspect.

He lost him on the stairwell. By the time he got to the lobby the door was swinging slowly shut, and there was no sign of the intruder.  Mulder spit out a curse, holstered his gun, and climbed back up the stairs.

Krycek was lying in a heap next to the bed, a dazed look on his face and a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth. From the looks of him, the intruder had clocked him across the jaw then ran for it. And Krycek hadn't put up even a semblance of a fight. Mulder went into the kitchen, jury-rigged an ice pack out of a dish towel and the last ice cubes in the freezer, and rejoined Krycek in the bedroom.  By this time the other man had managed to pull himself up onto the side of the bed. He was staring at the wreckage in a daze. Mulder handed him the ice, then guided his limp hand up to the side of his jaw, already swelling. Krycek looked at him, not saying a word, confusion and shock in every line of his body.

Mulder pulled out his cell phone and hit the first fast dial button.  Time to call in the big guns. "Hello, Scully? I need help."

 

Mulder had been his usual informative self, which meant that by the time Scully pulled up in front of his apartment she knew the usual zip nada. His life wasn't immediately in danger, something big was happening that could be anything from government conspiracies to alien landings, and he was out of his depth. It had boiled down to 'meet me at my apartment, Scully, I need you.'

Maybe it was time she took Kreske up on his e-mail invitation to spend a weekend in San Diego. Visit her nephew, ignore her brother, play footsie with a cute cop. She needed the break.

But right now, Mulder needed her. So she packed up her little black doctor's bag, her extra clip and her slogging through the mud shoes and went.

As soon as she walked through the door she dropped the bag, tensed in the shoes and pulled her gun.

"Federal agent, freeze! Put your hands where I can see them, Krycek!"

This did not get the reaction she was expecting. The shaky, pale young double agent in the Saville Row suit promptly whacked himself in the eye with what looked to be an attempt at an ice bag while trying to throw his hands in the air. Then he grunted in pain, reached up to grab at his now-sore eye, whacked his bruised, swollen jaw, and yelped, "Ow! Owowowowowow!" Then he fell to the floor, curled up in a ball, threw both hands over his head, and whined, yes, it was definitely a whine, "Help me, Mulder! Don't let her kill me! God, lady, don't shoot! I'm not Crutchiwhosit, honest to god, help me out here, Mulder!"

Scully lowered her weapon until it was resting, barrel still pointing at the quivering mass of humanity balled up on the floor, and stared at him. Behind her, Mulder sighed.

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto."

She tossed a glare back over her shoulder. He shrugged, then handed her a wallet. She looked at the offering, looked back at the man making no attempt to move from his fetal position at her feet, and holstered her weapon.

"This had better be good," she said calmly as she pulled a driver's license and various other identification cards out. Mulder shrugged, edged past her and gently patted Krycek's head. The whining slowed to an occasional whimper.

Scully looked through the papers, looked back at Mulder crouched down next to Krycek's doppelganger, and finally stared into wet green eyes staring accusingly up at her.

"Alec? _Neekto_?" she asked skeptically.

He tried to nod, was immediately reminded that his jaw was twice its normal size, and sniffed, long and loud. "Yeah, I **AM**." He did his very best attempt at belligerent. He looked about four years old to Scully. She looked at Mulder.

"Explain." So he did, or at least he tried to. By the time he finished, she was more than half tempted to believe they'd both lost their marbles. As she opened her mouth to share this belief with the men, all hell broke loose.

Four men wearing black camouflage and full face masks streamed through the door. Scully didn't have time to draw her gun before the first one took her out with a swift sideways blow to the head. Groggy, but not completely unconscious, she saw Mulder fighting two of the men desperately. Reaching for her gun, she was shocked to see the previously piteously whining Krycek lookalike lash out with hands and feet, taking two of the attackers down.

She called a warning, but as her mouth closed around the words three more of the commandos came through the doorway. Forcing herself up from the wall, ignoring the fierce pain in her head, she took one down with a kick to the stomach and dropped another with a chop to the throat. Then Mulder was flying past her, dragging Krycek alongside and scooping her wrist up into his grasp as he went past. From along the corridor they could hear more boots clattering up the stairs.

They went down the back way, along the fire escape.

No one had the breath to say much until they got several blocks away. Then Mulder led them to a small, out of the way diner in a quiet residential block. Scully was reaching for her cell phone when her partner's hand on hers stopped her.

"I'm calling for back-up, Mulder," she said determinedly. He shook his head.

"Can't do that, Scully."

"Why not?" It was an odd duet coming from both Scully and Krycek. He looked at both of them before addressing her.

"Look at him." He gestured to Krycek. "What'll happen if we take him into custody? Which we'd have to do if we call in anyone official on this."

"Why?" The lookalike asked plaintively. The partners ignored him.

"And that would be a bad thing?" She wasn't so sure.

"No, not if you want him to end up like Cardinale, or any one of the others the Consortium doesn't want to talk."

"Consortium? Cardinals? What the hell are you talking about?" The increasingly agitated voice was still just background noise to them.

"You have a point. So what do you propose we do about it?"

Krycek, or whoever he was, made an abortive attempt to rise. Mulder threw one leg over his thighs under the table and anchored him to the seat. He subsided, ungracefully, giving little twists and shoves to show that he was **not** intimidated.

"Find out what's behind the story," Mulder managed to say, containing Krycek's straining body with some effort. She looked at the two of them calculatingly.

"Where'd you learn to fight like that?" She rounded on Krycek. He jumped, and Mulder tightened his hold. Then he made a sinuous little sideways shift, and Mulder reacted with a strangled noise and what looked suspiciously like the beginnings of a blush. Scully ignored the by-play and fixed bright accusing eyes on the ringer.

"Aikido," he ground out huskily. "Studied it for years." He and Mulder appeared to be nearly sitting in one another's laps. Scully shook her head, partly to show that she didn't buy the story, partly to clear it. She really had to get out more. She was starting to feel like the audience at a peep show.

"What about your apartment, Mulder?" Turning to her partner, she was surprised at the intensity of the stare he was giving Krycek. _Maybe he's looking for plastic surgery scars_, she thought, then repeated the question. The second time, he responded.

"It's happened before. By the time we get back it'll be cleaned up. But they might come back. They seemed pretty intent on taking Krycek-"

"Neekto." Truculently, if a little stifled.

"-here," Mulder continued, ignoring him. "Might be a good idea if we went someplace quiet. Got a friend in Newport News, we could use his house."

"Think he'd mind?" she asked with a touch of sarcasm. "He might not be too happy if the goons in black find you there and decide to redecorate."

He shrugged. "He'll be okay with it. He's in Japan for the next three months. And his sister's a partier. We could always blame it on Sheryl."

She smiled unwillingly. "That's mature, Mulder, mess it up and blame it on the kids." He smiled back at her, unrepentant.

Krycek, or Neekto, squirmed.

 

A nice, quiet two story house on a nice quiet street in a nice quiet neighborhood. Perfect camouflage for debriefing a government witnesses with no stress, no pressure. And in this case, no luck. Krycek was determined that he was Neekto. He showed no signs of any combat training other than the Aikido he already admitted to, and seemed to be extremely uncomfortable with guns. His conversation centered around computers, obscure British police dramas from the early eighties, and instrumental music. Probing questions and slyly laid conversational traps exposed not a damned thing that wasn't completely in character for Alec Neekto. There wasn't a glimpse of Krycek. Mulder didn't have the slightest urge to slug him.

After three days of Scully ferreting around at headquarters and Mulder ferreting around in Krycek/Neekto's mind, the agent was ready to give it up and just call the guy Al. At least both alter egos had that in common.

After three **nights **with the man, Mulder was looking for a convent to join.

Or better yet, a monastery.

The story was iron clad, the cover was the most perfect he'd ever seen. An afternoon spent bonding with the Lone Gunmen had proven that his computer ability, at least, was genuine. And after nine meals with him, and three long nights laying in the living room listening to him breathe, Mulder was losing track of his priorities.

He'd long been aware that gender was a non-issue in his lovers. He was drawn toward people who intrigued him, and who would hurt him given half a chance. Fully aware of his own obsessive tendencies and his attraction toward anything and anyone that could prove hazardous to his health, his desire for Krycek had been just one more urge sublimated into his search for the truth through his work. That sublimation had been eased and encouraged by the double agent's subsequent betrayals.

Now, that search, and his investigative instincts, were concentrating on the same subject as his libido. It was stretching him to his limits.

The morning of the fourth day, it snapped.

It shouldn't have taken him by surprise. Any talking Alec had done for the last few days that didn't involve hacking code had been about men. Musicians, actors, characters in television shows … all guys. And he'd felt the other man watching him, gauging his reaction. Codes and subcodes, all very familiar to Mulder, even if it had been a long time since he'd been a codetalker in this particular substrata of society. Matched with the brushing hands, the 'accidental' bumps between their shoulders when they walked or their thighs when they sat, the staring and the lingering eye contact, and he was left in no doubt whatsoever that the want was returned.

He just didn't trust him.

And his body didn't seem to give a damn.

Three year old buried urges about the man who might or might not be scamming him were joined with new needs for the man he was getting to know, and when Alec leaned toward him over the file they were studying and kissed the side of his mouth, he turned his head.

Toward the touch, not away.

Alec moaned, shifted closer. Canted his head sideways.

Techtron's financial records for software development division for the last two years hit the floor with a dull thud. Neither man noticed, except to wriggle closer to one another, with the paper impediment removed.

It had been awhile, but the movements came back. It was a lot like riding a bike. Of course, an eidetic memory helped, and he had done quite a bit of studying along with his field research. He knew where the sensitive nerves were, and the likely response if he bit lightly just over the jugular, sucked gently on the Adam's apple, tugged at an earlobe. His hands roamed over the crisp linen shirt, sought out buttons, thanked Whomever that Alec wasn't given to undershirts as he dove his fingertips into the light fur on the warm chest.

As his own hands were exploring, so Alec's were roving over his own body, shifting off his shirt, tugging at his belt, sliding along his zipper. Mulder wasn't really aware of moving, too caught up in the taste of the skin under his mouth, but he helped as best he could without losing contact with his target. He had forgotten just how good this was, heated hands sweeping over his back, along his ass, strong legs winding through his, forcing his thighs apart.

Alec drew his head back, thrust one hand through Mulder's hair, and pulled their faces together. As Mulder covered Alec's open mouth with his own, taking it in a wet, deep kiss, they slid off the side of the sofa and ended up in a heap on the floor. He would have laughed at the ungraceful slide, but before he could get the breath, Alec's hand closed around his erection, and his attention narrowed to those thin bands of steel around him. He arched into the hold, losing Alec's kiss as his head fell back. Mulder's fingers dug into the carpet as Alec slid down his body, never ceasing the squeezing caress of his fist, until he could take Mulder's cock in his mouth.

At the first full touch of hot wet warmth over the head of his cock, Mulder tried to scream. Then fist and mouth began to work in tandem, and he opened his eyes to concentrate on the sight of that face, the face of his enemy, the face of his betrayer. Lips distended, cheek hollowing and filling, eyes closed, lashes brushing flushed cheeks, a lock of dark hair falling over his sweating forehead. The tips of the lock of hair caught in the lashes of his left eye. There was a mixture of pre-ejaculate and saliva coating his lips and smearing down on to his chin. Mulder could feel the movements of his throat against the head of his cock, as the long, slender fingers rolled his balls from side to side within the sac.

He had never seen anything so erotic in his life. And he'd seen a lot of erotica.

As much as his mind was telling him this was Neekto, his body was screaming that it was Krycek. The past and the present pulled together as he felt his climax gathering in his gut, and exploded into a mind-numbing fuzzy red haze as he came. Every muscle in his body clenched, he could swear even his hair was standing up straight, and his fingers and toes curled. Then he collapsed.

Sweaty, hot hands pushed urgently at his thighs, and he obligingly moved them the few inches his lover demanded. Then those hands were shoving at the outside of his hips, and he felt the slick thrust of Alec's cock sliding at the apex, splitting his spent balls, rubbing at the sensitive skin of his perineum. The sensation was actually painful after his full-throttle climax, but before he could gather himself enough to decide if the pain was a bad or a good thing, the heaving body atop his stilled. Alec thrust twice, then shuddered, leaning in over Mulder's torso and burying his face in the curve of his shoulder. Mulder lifted weighted arms up and around the shaking back, cuddling him close, soothing him. Turning his head slightly he dropped a feather kiss on the thin skin behind Alec's ear. Alec sighed, burrowed closer, and panted, trying to get his breath back.

By the time they were both calm enough to get untangled from one another, Mulder had a crick in his neck and what felt like a permanent indentation from the folder crumpled at the small of his back (now undoubtedly covered with semen, and he was not about to try to explain **that** to Scully). Alec finally got enough strength back to shift himself up to his knees. They stared at one another for a long moment, Mulder splayed spread-eagle with his legs lying alongside Alec's knees, arms relaxed at his sides, Alec kneeling over him. Mulder suddenly grinned up at his uncertain lover.

"Will you still respect me in the morning?" Alec looked at him like he'd lost his mind, then snorted with laughter.

"It still **is** morning, or hadn't you noticed?" He shoved himself to his feet and extended a hand to help Mulder up. Mulder took it, but didn't drop it when he was standing. Instead, he twined their fingers closer together, leaned forward and lightly kissed Alec, licking at the last few drops of his own spendings.

"We are out of our fucking minds." Before Alec could answer, a shrill ringing from somewhere in the mound of clothes caused Mulder to drop his hand and start digging through the material. Alec watched him, mouth opening then closing several times as if he wanted to say something but didn't quite know what it was. Mulder could sympathize.

Finally locating his cell phone, he brought it up to his ear.

"Mulder."

"Are you all right?" Why did she always ask that? After all, he had managed to answer it. He stifled the question and nodded once, forgetting as usual that she couldn't see him.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Scully. What have you found?"

"Well, he's not who he said he was." Mulder's eyes closed in pain. Shit. This was exactly what he had expected. "But it doesn't look like he's who we thought he was, either." His eyes popped back open and he stared over at Alec, who was watching him with open concern.

"Care to elucidate on that one?"

"He is a programmer, but for the DoD, not Techtron. His records go back only eleven years, then they're sealed and it would take Frohicke to pull them out, and land us all in prison. And get this, Mulder -- he has language capabilities listed. English is not his first language. **Russian** is."

Mulder swallowed heavily. "Can you get away?"

"In about a half hour. Watch your back, Mulder." His lips tightened at the concern in her voice, and the reasons behind it.

"I will, Scully. You too -- they know we have him, and by now they'll undoubtedly be bringing in the big guns to find him."

He listened for her agreement, then slowly closed the phone. Taking a deep breath, he began to dress, tossing Alec his clothes as he came across them. Alec tried to ask him several times what Scully had said, but Mulder shook his head, cutting him off each time. When they were both fully dressed and Mulder had brought out cans of orange juice for both of them, they settled back on the couch. Alec stared at Mulder. Mulder stared at the mess of come and paperwork on the carpet. He nudged it with one toe.

"Who are you?" he finally asked very quietly. Alec made an impatient noise, and Mulder simply looked at him. The other man swallowed, took a gulp of juice, and licked his lips.

"Everything I've told you is true, but it's not all there is."

"Is it ever?" Mulder interjected cynically. Alec looked at him miserably, and Mulder nodded for him to continue. "Go ahead, spill it."

Alec squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, gathering his thoughts, then did just that. "I come from a small town just outside of Kaunas in what is now Lithuania. I was a computer scientist, my specialty was creating programs that would encrypt and protect classified data. During the course of my work I proved valuable to certain members of the international community." He stared hard at Mulder, as if willing him to believe. "Don't misunderstand me, Mulder. I was, and still am, a Communist. This was well known to those around me, and when democracy came to my country it took that country away from me. I was mistrusted, and was no longer allowed to do my work. A few months after the declaration of democracy, Doctor Jeremy Smits, a man I had worked with on a joint project with MIT, and a friend, helped to smuggle me to the United States. He arranged, with help from friends at the State Department, to get the papers I needed to become a citizen. He also arranged for my job at the Department of Defense. But I can't tell people that. It's classified! I didn't lie to you," he stumbled over the narrative at the strangled "bullshit!" Mulder couldn't quite bite back. "No more than I have been forced to lie to anyone! To everyone. My work is top secret, except for that which I do for Techtron. And there has **never** been a threat from my primary employers. I only started working on this project with Techtron last year, and nothing else has changed. These men, they **must** be after me because of the contract work! Nothing else makes any sense!"

Mulder stared hard at him for a moment, then shook his head. "You actually expect this to make sense? You really **are** naïve." He got up slowly from the couch, gathered the ruined papers from the floor, and headed for the door. "Come on. We have some digging to do."

Behind his back, Mulder heard a soft whisper, "But do you believe me?" He stopped, looked at the sticky papers in his hand, and leaned against the door jamb, still keeping his back to his erstwhile lover.

"I want to." Then he settled down at the table and pulled his briefcase toward him. "Sit down and dig."

Alec sat down and began digging.

 

Forty five minutes later and no clues the wiser, Scully interrupted their search with take-out Chinese boxes and suspicious glares. Mulder shrugged, gave her an apologetic look, and told her what Alec had told him. Alec kept his head down and munched fried rice.

"I thought you were the one who didn't believe in coincidences?" she challenged Mulder. Surely he couldn't actually buy this, she thought with total disbelief. He actually appeared to be considering it.

He poked at a stray shrimp and wagged a chopstick in her general direction. "I don't. And I'm not saying that there isn't a conspiracy going on here -- Alec wouldn't be targeted if there wasn't."

She noted his use of the alternate first name and sighed internally. He **was** buying it. Not that it should surprise her, after all. It was a weird mystery, and Mulder lived for them. She watched him swallow the shrimp and waited patiently for his justifications.

"I'm just saying I don't think **he** is part of it. He's looking more and more like a victim, Scully."

"But why? We still haven't clarified that!"

He tapped a printout with one finger. Alec craned his neck to see what he was pointing out.

"The data compressor? What's the big deal with that? It's not even part of the more highly classified stuff." He cocked his head to the side, and just for a moment, took Mulder's breath away. He was a dead ringer for Krycek.

Scully noticed Mulder's choke and asked quickly, "Are you okay?" At his nod, she backed up Alec's question. "What link do you think you've found?"

"It's not the compression program itself," he managed, his voice smoothing out as he worked the knot out of his throat. "It's the funding. It looks familiar -- too familiar. There was a similar funding structure behind the farms where the … children were found."

She heard the carefully unstated 'clones' and shot a glance at Alec. He appeared confused.

"What's wrong with the funding? Not that I'm a genius with grants, but it looked pretty straightforward to me."

"It is, on the surface." Mulder warmed to his topic. "But scratch that surface and you find a network of companies with untraceable holdings. I recognize some of the names. Scully and I have run across them before. They're fronts for a Consortium of what can at best be called businessmen and at worst monsters, who for some time used a man who is your doppelganger for some of their dirtiest work." He shoved the chopstick into the box and pushed back from the table, slumping in his chair and looking very tired. "I think they didn't take into account your presence in the project, Alec. And I think someone panicked, and decided to get rid of you. Perhaps someone at Techtron recognized, or **thought** he recognized you, and is trying to take you out on the off chance that you **are** Krycek."

Scully pushed around a grain of rice and looked back and forth between the two men. Mulder was stretching on this one. From the … odd feeling she was getting between the two of them, she'd be willing to bet something was going on. She just wasn't sure what. And she wasn't completely sure she wanted to know. Neekto, or whoever the hell he was, had gotten under Mulder's skin. Badly.

Before she could expand on the thought, Mulder was sitting straight up, then diving sideways, knocking Neekto out of his chair and screaming for her to get down. She hit the deck sideways, feeling the chair skid away from her, and heard the whine of small arms fire over her head. Risking a look as she scuttled for cover, she saw that the bullets had buried themselves in the back of Neekto's chair. Right at heart-level.

She pulled her Sig Sauer out and flicked off the safety, bringing it around on the intruder. For an instant she froze, her weapon trained on a slender, pale man with dark hair, hugging the wall and aiming past her.

Krycek.

She screamed warning and fired directly after, instinctively protecting their charge. Krycek ducked through the side hall into the sitting room, then got off a few more shots around the door jamb. He was using a Magnum, large caliber, and they were sitting ducks. Mulder was trying to get a clear shot when Alec's nerve gave, and he ran. Shouting something about 'fucking guns' and 'nyet' and 'pachyemoo', he hit the door running. Mulder yelled 'Shit!', gave Scully a 'get the hell out of here' hand signal, and followed.

Scully was right behind him.

Once in the front drive, Mulder caught up with Alec, wrestling him behind a hedge and trying to shake some sense into him. Scully skidded around the side of the hedge, waved off the gun Mulder pointed at her, and cocked her head in a silent question. Mulder shook his own head in a negative reply, and she nodded. He had his hands full. She'd go see about taking down Krycek. He'd join her as soon as he got Alec calm, quiet and hidden.

That answered one thing. Unless he was twins, he sure as hell wasn't Krycek.

It was a game of cat and mouse throughout the house. She was nearly to the end of the clip when he finally made a mistake, and she nailed him for it. It was a clean shot through the shoulder, taking him down but not killing him. She was a professional, after all, and as much as she would have liked some vengeance for the part the man had played in her abduction and the death of her sister, she wanted to see justice done even more badly.

Coming up cautiously alongside the still body, she gave him a visual once-over. He looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, several days beard growth shadowing his face. There was a lot of blood pooling under his torso, and it was still flowing fast. Keeping her pistol ready, she leaned down with one hand to his throat, finding a fast, weak pulse.

She turned her head, calling strongly, "Mulder!" Then there was a flash of movement and her vision exploded into a million tiny white spots that slowly faded away into black.

 

Mulder had to practically sit on Alec to get him to listen. The younger man was terrified, shaking like a leaf and having difficulty stringing words together. Eventually he managed to apologize, barely.

"Bad memories. Sorry. Scully?" It was hard to understand coming from stiff lips over a clenched jaw, but it was enough.

"You stay here." Alec shook his head wildly. Mulder growled softly under his breath. He didn't have time for this. "YES!" he commanded in a whispered scream. "I have to go back up my partner! Move and I'll shoot you myself!"

This appeared to settle the argument. Before he could pull away, Alec reached over and kissed him, once, drawing back immediately.

"Watch yourself." The shaking had finally passed. Now he simply looked dazed, and scared even more for Mulder than for himself. Mulder grinned quickly at him.

"Always." He ignored the quiet "why don't I believe that?" behind him and made his way into the house. Three feet inside the front door he heard Scully call out that she had the rat bastard.

"Scully? Where are you?" When she didn't answer, he felt a sick churning in his stomach. This was **not** a good sign. Tearing through the rest of the house as quickly as he could without leaving himself open to getting his head blown off, he finally located her. She was lying in a puddle of blood in the back bedroom. "Oh, Jesus, Scully," he whispered, then put out a hand to feel her pulse. It was strong and steady. He closed his eyes for a heart beat with the relief then looked her over thoroughly. It looked like the blood wasn't hers.

"Is she okay?"

Mulder had spun and cocked his weapon at Alec before he even realized he was moving. Jerking the barrel toward the ceiling, he hissed, "Don't you **ever** fucking listen?" Uncocking the Glock he turned back to his partner. She was just coming around. As she started to shake the muzziness out of her head, they all heard the same thing.

Footsteps, heading toward them from the front of the house.

Mulder made a split second decision. Grabbing Scully's gun, he pressed it into her hand. Cupping her chin, he saw the pain and the lingering dizziness from the blow, but he also saw enough awareness to be able to defend herself.

"Stay with her." This time Alec wouldn't disobey. Mulder was ice cold, and there was no doubt that he **would** shoot Alec if Scully was left alone.

Alec came forward, crouching next to Scully and steadying her. "Go to it, Mulder. We're okay." It was said with more bravado than certainty, but with Scully's ginger nod backing it up, Mulder went to hunt Krycek.

Peering around corners, hearing his heart beat in his ears, concentrating on the stealthy sounds that would give his prey away hopefully before he gave himself away, Mulder stalked Krycek from room to room. From the back den to the center hall, up the stairs, ducking at a draft of air, squinting into late afternoon sunlight glinting in through the three narrow windows along the side wall of the stairway, by the time Mulder cornered Krycek he was jumpier than he could quite control. Adrenaline, the copper bite of fear on the back of his tongue, the iron tension in his flexed arms as he held his gun ready all combined to make time run slower, draw out the chase. He heard the light slap of tread skipping back down the stairs, toward his wounded partner and their charge, and threw himself onto the upper landing, bringing his gun to bear on a black leather clad back heading halfway down the stairwell.

"Krycek! Stop!" He didn't really expect the bastard to do it. A twisting turn, one gloved hand flung out against the banister for balance, the other leveling a fucking huge gun directly at Mulder's head. He didn't consciously make the decision to squeeze the trigger. But he felt the kick of the recoil, felt the jerk of the Glock against his palm. Watched the impact of the two slugs as they buried themselves, one mid-abdomen, one directly in the center of his chest.

Mulder stared at the crumpled, unmoving body, shaking slightly, and slowly lowered his gun. His knee hurt where he'd landed on it. He could smell the blood and the cordite from the fired rounds. The smell caught at the back of his throat and nearly made him gag. With a rush of sound and sight, reality slammed back into real time around him, and he heard a voice screaming his name.

"Mulder! We need **help**!" Alec. Scully. _Shit_.

He paused just long enough to verify that Krycek was, indeed, dead, then vaulted down the rest of the steps and swung into the side room, Glock up and ready.

The room was empty.

Swinging in a tight circle, he caught sight of Alec peering out at him from around the side of a heavy desk. Skittering around the side, he saw that the other man had bundled Scully up and tucked her behind the solid drawers, trying to barricade them as much as possible from any incoming threat. She was groggy, obviously concussed, and Mulder gave Alec full marks for getting her to a safe spot.

Guessed the guy wasn't completely useless in a dangerous situation.

Keeping a look-out for any other threats, Mulder demanded, "What happened?"

Alec swallowed twice before he could say anything. "Scully started to get really dizzy, so I helped her move over by the desk so she could lean on it. Then I heard somebody coming in the front, so I grabbed her and got her around back of the desk so they wouldn't see us. She fainted, I think, her head must be killing her. I looked out and saw a couple guys in black, like the ones that hit my apartment. Then I heard gunshots, and they took off. I yelled for you as soon as they were out of sight."

A muffled groan from Scully took their attention. She looked a little better, but still dazed and pale. Mulder took out his cell phone and hit the third fast dial button. Two reroutings through the switchboard he had Director Skinner on the line. The explanation was terse and to the point, and eleven minutes later an ambulance, forensics team, back up and the AD were all on the way. Mulder's ears were burning, but that was nothing new. With Alec's help, Mulder gently transferred Scully to the couch to await the ambulance.

"Stop fussing, Mulder, I'm fine," she grumbled, her standard response to any sort of injury that wasn't immediately life threatening.

"Of course you are, Scully," he responded automatically with his standard response to hers, and they shared a small, conspiratorial grin. Then she winced as the movement set off the pain in her head, and he patted her shoulder. "The cavalry will be here in a minute, Scully. I need to check the body." They both knew that Mulder had to get there first if there was anything to salvage that they didn't want disappearing into a black hole somewhere. "Will you be okay?"

She shooed him away. "I'll be fine, Mulder, really."

He smiled down at her, then glanced over at Alec. The young man had been very quiet while everything was going down, and now looked rather pale himself. Mulder had a jarring moment when Krycek's feral snarl overlay the calm features, then shook himself out of it.

Krycek was dead. Scully was injured, Alec was traumatized, he was damned tired. Time to get this cleaned up and go forward.

Holding his hand out to Alec, Mulder pulled him toward the door. "Watch the door for me?" he invited. Alec nodded, and followed him into the hall. There was a tiny quiver running through the other man's slender frame, and Mulder pulled him into the shadow of the entryway, out of sight of Scully. "Are **you** okay?"

Alec stared at him for a long moment, then slowly burrowed into his arms. Burying his face in Mulder's shoulder, he said softly, "I hate guns. The old ways of government didn't leave my country without a fight. My brother and my father were both killed in the years leading up to secession. I was just a teenager when my brother was killed. I found him, in his car, the side of his head was missing." A sharp shudder went through him, and Mulder tightened his hold. "I was eleven." He took a deep breath and pulled away from Mulder. His face was drawn with remembered pain, and his eyes were very old. "I truly hate guns."

Mulder nodded, then lifted one hand to touch his cheek. "It's okay, Alec. I'm sorry. Just … stay here, and show the paramedics where to find Scully when they get here, all right? And when you see a balding guy with glasses who looks like he's chewing glass … warn me so I can hide."

The attempt at humor lightened the atmosphere somewhat, and Alec smiled slightly before pushing Mulder toward the stairs. "Sentry on duty," he called quietly. Mulder threw a grin over his shoulder then turned to face the corpse.

Except there wasn't one.

"**_FUCK_**." He closed his eyes, pounded his fist against the banister in frustration, and threw a command over his shoulder. "Stay here, I'm going to go find him. He can't be very far away!" He pounded up the stairs, doing a thorough reconnaissance of all the rooms, knowing it was hopeless. Sometime while he was seeing to Scully a clean up had taken place, and he hadn't even known it. Damning himself for missing his opportunities once again, he made certain he checked every single room.

As he had expected, the rat had been spirited away.

At the foot of the stairs, glancing to the side to make sure Scully's eyes were closed and to the front to ensure back up had not yet arrived, then a final time at Mulder's disappearing back, Alec stretched his right foot forward. Using the edge of his shoe, he scrubbed the small green stain into the carpet. There was the brief flare of carpet fibers vaporizing at contact with the toxic substance, then nothing but a hole in the material to ever show what had once been there. Slowly climbing the stairs, listening as Mulder went through the rooms, he did the same with the entire trail of droplets leading from the front door to the pool of red blood slowly seeping into the carpeting on the steps. When all evidence of alien presence had been eradicated, he returned to the foot of the stairs and resumed his watch for the ambulance.

 

The next hour was extremely unpleasant for all involved. Scully was lucky. She had a concussion and got to escape to the hospital. Mulder had to stand still for the full Skinner Rips Your Head Off and Hands It To You treatment. Alec was the only real surprise. He actually tried to stand up for Mulder to Skinner.

That lasted almost thirty seconds before Skinner blasted him into near-catatonia. Mulder unobtrusively tucked Alec back behind him and braced himself for the rest of the reaming. When the boss had run out of steam, another useless APB was put out on Krycek. Skinner took Neekto off to a safe house, and Mulder didn't see him for several weeks.

There were occasional briefings, and Mulder kept tabs on him as best he could from a distance, but eventually things settled down to what passed for normal with the X Files. Eventually the report came through that no further threat had been determined against Alec Neekto, and he had returned to his life. There was no further contact.

Scully returned to work, sound and skeptical as always. Mulder obsessed, chewed seeds, threw paper basketballs, and tried to forget Alec.

Of course it didn't work.

Nearly seven months after watching Alec walk away flanked by FBI bodyguards, Mulder stepped from the elevator to find him waiting patiently beside his apartment door. He stopped and stared, unable to think of a thing to say. Alec grinned at him.

"Needko. Alec. Free man. Wanna party?"

The hesitation was gone, and the husky tone Mulder remembered so well from the one and only time he'd had this man was back in full force. He dug into his coat pocket, fumbled out his door key and handed it silently to Alec.

"yeah." The satisfied whisper cut through both of them.

 

It hadn't been difficult at all. Ghosts are hard to call, harder still to contain, almost impossible to fight, and easy to banish if they never existed.

He looked at the tired, rumpled, gorgeous agent in front of him and took the keys. And the trust. The desire, and the belief.

The bed was a mess, but it was even messier by the time they finished. He'd undressed Mulder with care and attention that was wasted on the inferno of need that distracted the man. They had kissed until their lips were swollen and sore, touched until they could map one another blindfolded, know one another from the scent of skin alone.

They hadn't warned him about this. This heady rush of losing himself, the pure power of knowing the man moaning beneath him was **his**. They probably hadn’t known it themselves, dry bones of old withered flesh that they were. Not for them the solidity of flesh, the grasp of needful muscles, the press of hungry hands. Not for them, the wet slap of moist sweating skin, the arching back, the tensed thighs, the finally yielding channel. And most certainly not for them, the greedy clench of muscle draining him, the convulsion of heat sparking his own, the splash of fire against his stomach, dripping onto his groin, searing him.

Only for him. Never for them.

As Mulder gradually relaxed into sleep and he gently pulled until they were separated again, he settled his lover deeper into the tossed linens and smiled down at his peaceful face. Then he laughed, silently, bitterly, at his own imaginings.

Of course it was for them.

Waiting patiently until he was certain that Mulder was deeply asleep, Alex padded barefooted and naked into the bathroom. Shutting the door and turning on the light, he stared into the mirror for a very long time. Then he reached behind the toilet tank and brought out a small dull gray metal case. Listening to make sure that Mulder still slept, he clicked the case open and took out a syringe and an ampoule of green liquid. With no expression on his face, he loaded the cartridge. Staring at the line of his arm as he lined the needle up, he sank it fully into the small knot at the base of his skull and depressed the plunger steadily until the syringe was completely empty. Withdrawing it carefully, he replaced it in the case and hid it back behind the tank. Reaching back with one finger, he probed the nape of his neck, satisfied when the fingertip came back dry.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes as the fluid sped along his nervous system, easing out the kinks and soothing the tingling nerve endings. When the flush finally stopped itching under his skin, he opened his eyes again and cocked his head, appraising himself in the mirror. His right hand came up to lightly finger his left biceps, fingers trailing gently over a nearly invisible scar circling his upper arm.

Turning from the mirror, he shut off the light, gave his eyes time to adjust to the darkness, and slipped soundlessly into the living room. Mulder shifted in his sleep, but didn't waken.

Rummaging quickly in his jacket pocket, he extracted a hair-thin filament and wound it in place along the upper edge of the shelves above the fish tank, careful not to disturb the dust accumulated there. Extending the end of the strand to the corner of the electrical outlet directly underneath it, he pressed firmly. It disappeared into the dried paint, just another hairline crack amongst many. Returning to the shelf, he angled it to get the best field of vision for the video feed it would provide and stepped back to check his work.

Perfect. Mulder would never know it was there.

Digging a half-full baggy of chocolate candies out of his other pocket and prepared to use a midnight case of the munchies as an alibi if need be, he slipped back into the bedroom. Mulder still hadn't stirred. He set the bag on the bedside table, slipped between the sheets and curled his body along Mulder's left side. Attracted to the heat, Mulder shifted in his sleep and threw an arm over his bedmate.

Krycek smiled down at the head nestled into his chest, running his fingers gently through the soft brown hair. He had his second chance, in his own twisted way, and now that the sleeper was awake, he was going to enjoy every second of this particular dream.

Until they took it all away.

Again.

**finis**


End file.
